Assignment Prompt: Research Proposal
Overview
The research proposal provides a space for you to share the reasons why you want to study your chosen topic and helps you determine the parameters of your future writing project, including your research question(s), rationale, summary, predictions, list of reviewed sources, and a strategy for next steps. This assignment serves two purposes: it provides a blueprint–or a working plan–for your future essay, and it helps you to establish topical boundaries, as you begin to narrow your research focus.
Expectations
The research proposal aims to develop your ability to navigate a complex research and review process. This assignment will help you to:
Collect and organize source material
Practice MLA formatting
Organize your ideas coherently and concisely
Synthesize your own ideas with the ideas from sources
Practice presenting information to readers in manageable chunks
Engage in self-reflection and planning processes
Requirements
This assignment requires 7 fully developed and supported sections, as outlined in Organization. The minimum word count is 650 words total. (Please note: there is an error in the instructional video–only 7 sections are required.)
*If the above requirements are not met, your assignment may be returned with no grade and a resubmission will be required.
Length/Sources: You should include the 5 sources that you collected for your annotated bibliography and list them in section 6 of the research proposal. For this assignment only: you do not need to worry about including a hanging indent for your reference citations. However, please plan to use MLA formatting for the order and structure of the citations.
Organization: Your proposal should include the following 7 components, and should be presented using the organizer required for this assignment. Check out the table below for important information about the content and conditions of each component.
Component
Content
Conditions
Proposed Topic
In this section, you will describe the topic that you want to study, including any important issues that you will address, in regards to that topic.
Aim for 1-2 complete and concise sentences. You want to be very specific here, with a nicely narrowed focus.
Question(s)
In this section, you will present the question(s) that you are using to investigate your topic and discuss why these questions are the ones that you have decided to use to guide your progress.
Aim for 4 complete and concise questions. Taking on more than that will broaden your scope too much.
Rationale
In this paragraph, you will share why this topic interests you, and what led to you investigating it.
Aim for a fully developed and supported paragraph, with at least 4-5 sentences.
Summary
In this paragraph, you will share some of the parameters for your project: What are the specific supporting points you are considering, and why? Is there anything you are not planning on covering? Why/why not?
Aim for a fully developed and supported paragraph, with at least 4-5 sentences.
Prediction
In this paragraph, you will predict what you will learn from your investigation of your topic–what do you think you will discover? Why do you think this information will be important? Do you expect to find any gaps in information?
Aim for a fully developed and supported paragraph, with at least 4-5 sentences.
List of Reviewed Sources
In this section, you will include the list of the 5 sources you collected for your annotated bibliography.
Be sure to use MLA formatting for these reference citations. However, you do not need to worry about using the hanging indent.
Explanation
In this paragraph, you will describe why readers should care about your topic. What makes your topic important? Why is this an issue that everyone needs to know about?
Aim for a fully developed and supported paragraph, with at least 4-5 sentences.
Document Formatting: MLA formatting: Heading (name, assignment name, course name, date), original title, header (page numbers), line-spacing (single or double-spaced), 1” margins, 12-point font size, and Times New Roman or other sans-serif font.
Genre/Style: Formal analysis using a 7-section graphic organizer. Although this is a multimodal assignment, your writing should be in complete sentences and include academic tone and structure.
Organizer
Please copy and paste this organizer into a Word document and fill out each row on the right with information specific to your topic and research project. The requirements for the content of each section are outlined in the Research Proposal Prompt.
You should still plan to use formal MLA style for this assignment, including a MLA title page and header.
Proposed Topic
Question(s)
Rationale
Summary
Prediction
List of Reviewed Sources
Explanation
